More rain

I was going to do something else entirely today but I’m still stuck on the rain. It’s coming down harder now than on Friday, accompanied by gusts of wind, driving it against the window. Fall is finally here!

Raindrops on the window

Yucca ‘Margaritaville’

Agave schidigera

Agave ‘Kissho Kan’

Yellow lotus banana
(Musella lasiocarpa)

Emerald bamboo
(Bambusa textilis ‘Mutabilis’)

Key lime leaves

Key lime

Hummingbird loving the rain, too!

Raindrops on the window

To give you a better idea of why we’re so focused on rain here in Davis, California:

— Our average total precipitation per year is just 17.54 in.¹

— Compare this to the wettest and driest places in the continental U.S.: Quillayute, WA with 104.50 in. and Yuma, AZ with 2.65 in.²

— As is typical for a Mediterranean climate, there’s very little (if any) precipitation between May and October. During that time, our daytime temperatures can be into the 100s. Fortunately, thanks to the effect of the Delta Breeze—the wind coming off the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to the southwest of us—it does cool off nicely in the evening. Places further up and down the Central Valley don’t have that moderating influence and often stay hot well into the night.

¹ See http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?ca2294.
² See http://web2.airmail.net/danb1/usrecords.htm.